


Memoirs Written in Silence

by sglottalk



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Joseon Dynasty, Time Period: Reign of Ezar Vorbarra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 09:50:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6279757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sglottalk/pseuds/sglottalk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Princess Kareen discovers the memoirs of a woman who had been in a situation much like her own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memoirs Written in Silence

As she was pregnant and living under Emperor Ezar and Captain Negri's protection, Princess Kareen found herself spending a lot of time reading about Ancient Earth history. 

That is how she discovered a book called _Memoirs Written in Silence_.

The writer, Lady Hyegyeong, had like Kareen married a crown prince. Lady Hyegyeong's husband, Crown Prince Sado, was like her husband Crown Prince Serg in that he had also been the sole living son of the reigning monarch. Crown Prince Sado's father had been King Yeongjo of the Joseon Kingdom.

Like her own husband, Serg, Sado had also been mentally ill. And like Serg, Sado had abused and raped many women. And killed some of his own mistresses.

Kareen had suspected it, but when Lady Hyegyeong's memoir finally made that fact clear, Kareen had to put down the electronic device she had been using to read the book, and read no further for days.

Lady Hyegyeong was very careful not to mention any harm Sado may have done to herself - the translator's introduction made it very clear that Joseon women were required to show great loyalty to their own husbands - but she wrote at length about her own feelings of distress, and made it clear that she had feared for her own life, and the life of their son.

Yes, they had a son.

Imagining the things which Lady Hyegyeong had not written down about what her husband had done to her took practically no imagination on Kareen's part. Hardly any imagination at all.

Lady Hyegyeong considered her son to be a most wonderful being, her solace amid the horror which was her life at the Joseon royal court, and her reason for living on and not taking her own life. Kareen hoped that her own son, Gregor, who was still in her womb, would be as bright and affectionate as Lady Hyegyeong's son.

But that was Lady Hyegyeong's second son. Her first son had died before his second birthday. If Gregor died as a baby, in order to have another grandson, might Ezar make her go back to Serg to...

The doctor had visited this week, as he did every week, and said that Gregor seemed entirely healthy, and there was no cause for worry about the pregnancy. Kareen - and Gregor - had access to much better medical care on Barrayar than Lady Hyegyeong did in ancient Joseon. Kareen told herself this again and again to calm herself down.

King Yeongjo had just as bad a relationship with his son Sado as Ezar had with his son Serg. Eventually, Yeongjo had ordered Sado to enter a grain box, ordered the box to be closed, and left it to sit in a courtyard, exposed to the summer sun, until Sado had starved to death.

Would Ezar ever do such a thing to Serg? Publicly expose Serg and make him starve, without offering him the reprieve of a private suicide? Would Ezar eventually conclude that it was necessary, just as Yeongjo had concluded that it was the only way to deal with the problems created by his own son?

And it had not just been Sado. Yeongjo had also executed Sado's surviving workmen, guards, and mistresses. If Ezar were to ever decide to ... remove Serg, surely he would spare the innocent people under Serg's command.

And the suggestion to finally put to Sado to death had come from his own mother, Lady Seonhui. It was shortly after Sado had been caught trying to break into the residence of her daughter Princess Hwawan in order to ... Lady Hyegyeong's memoir implied that Sado lusted after his own sister. If Gregor were to grow up to be a man like Serg, and he threatened a woman that way, whether or not she was her own daughter, could Kareen bring herself to ever...

No, she refused to think about any such possibility. Gregor was going to be a wonderful child, just like Lady Hyegyeong's son. Since Lady Hyegyeong's son, in spite of his father, was beloved by the people around him, surely Gregor could also be a far better person than his father.

She was not hoping that Gregor would become a great emperor, as Lady Hyegyeong's own son, King Jeongjo, had become one of the greatest rulers in the five-century-long history of Joseon. That would be hoping for too much. She was just hoping for a child to love, a child who could live happily.

The book was known as _Memoirs Written in Silence_ because that is what women of the Joseon royal court were - silent. Joseon women hardly wrote anything about their own lives, and if Lady Hyegyeong had been anyone other than the king's grandmother, she probably would not have dared write at all about her husband Crown Prince Sado. At the time she wrote these memoirs, it had been unheard of for a woman of the Joseon royal family to break the silence in such a way.

Would Kareen ever be able to break her own silence?

_What if Gregor were to read it?_

Kareen noticed that the memoirs which described Crown Prince Sado in any detail had all been written after Lady Hyegyeong's son, King Jeongjo, had died.

No, no. No.

One thing Kareen desperately hoped for was that Gregor would have a long life, and that she would not outlive him. If that meant that she would never break her silence, and never reveal even as much of what happened in her marriage and her feelings as Lady Hyegyeong had revealed of her own marriage and feelings, so be it. It would be a very, very small price to pay.

**Author's Note:**

> I have personally visited the courtyard where Crown Prince Sado died. I have also visited the palace where Lady Hyegyeong's 60th birthday celebration took place, which currently features a diorama of Lady Hyegyeong and King Jeongjo.


End file.
